solving-africas-weed-problem-report1

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lives in the endless drudgery of manual weed control. Herbicide use would provide release from much of this toil, enabling more time for education and other activities and alleviation of chronic back pain and spinal deformation. It is unnecessary for herbicidal control to be complete. A very considerable reduction in weeding labor is obtained by controlling 80-90% of the weeds. One concern is that herbicide use in African countries will tend to increase unemployment. This may have been true in regions with large farms, employing a substantial work force, but not for the vast majority of small-scale farmers who do not employ outside workers (Labrada & Parker, 2003). Rather, farm families spend a large proportion of their time in weeding operations, time which could be more productively used (Labrada & Parker, 2003). The economic benefits of herbicides can be realized if the labor released from hand weeding is gainfully employed elsewhere. There is ample work in other crops which is delayed or often skimped due to lack of labor. Additionally, in cotton and groundnuts, there is much work other than hand weeding which requires hand labor early in the season. Better attention to such work should result in higher yields from all crops (Idris & Thomas, 1970). Increasing the area that is harvested through improved weed control will provide more employment opportunities for hired labor during the harvest (Mavudzi et al., 2001). Farmers in participatory weed control trials in Kenya were all in favor of herbicide use and said that the saved labor is used in some other farm activities (Muthamia et al., 2001). In Kenyan maize experiments, there was no appreciable differences between the total labor requirements on the herbicide-treated and the control plots. This was because the time saved in weeding was used up in harvesting increased yield on the herbicide plots (Ogungbile & Lagoke, 1986). A system of chemical weed control in tea has evolved in East Africa which has cut weeding costs by 75%. Harvesting the increased crop has absorbed all the labor released by the cessation of manual weeding; productive work has replaced the drudgery of handweeding (Willson, 1972). - 22 -
Using herbicides in groundnut production would save two to three weeks of time, allowing timely attention to other tasks including potentially significantly increasing the area planted with groundnuts (Schilling, 2003). If farmers used herbicides they could alleviate their labor bottleneck during the peak period with labor being released for operations on other crops (Tanner & Sahile, 1991). It is the use of time and the return to family labor that is of prime importance to the African farmer. If the farmers can use time saved from manual weeding to carry out other profitable operations (extension of farmed area, more timely sowing of later crops, planting and tending a cash crop) then there is a good case for using herbicides (Benson, 1982). Herbicides can be useful to the smallholder using family labor even though there is no direct saving in labor cost since they may be used to increase the production of cash crops by releasing labor from the food crops at the correct sowing periods. Labor is the most limiting resource for the household (Tittonell et al., 2007). The results of a research program in Kenya indicated that herbicides can improve the economic returns of smallholder farms (Kibata et al., 2002). The main reasons for this were increased yields of maize and beans due to more effective weed control during the critical period of crop growth when there is a shortage of labor for manual weeding. The removal of this constraint by use of herbicides increased the yields by 53% in maize and 94% in beans in the maize/bean intercrop and 38% in the maize monocrop. The net benefits increased as a result of reduction in production costs associated with herbicides. The herbicides allowed large reductions in labor required for weeding. The net benefits increased by 61% in the maize/bean intercrop and 46% in the maize monocrop. The potential impact of these findings is that herbicide use in maize can improve the economic status of rural communities, enhance food security and improve livelihoods. The reduced drudgery - 23 -
Page 2 and 3: “Without weeding do not expect an
Page 4 and 5: Zimbabwe determined that farm house
Page 6 and 7: (50-80%), groundnut (80%), and cass
Page 8 and 9: 30-90 hours per hectare are require
Page 10 and 11: (Vissoh et al., 2004). Labor for ha
Page 12 and 13: In Africa, yield losses in farmers
Page 14 and 15: assumed that smallholders have exce
Page 16 and 17: labor at critical times are rapidly
Page 18 and 19: • Two properly timed handweedings
Page 20 and 21: Constraints on Herbicide Use Chemic
Page 22 and 23: plant breeding, and agronomy, but h
Page 26 and 27: for weeding would also increase the
Page 28 and 29: Potential Aggregate Impacts of Herb
Page 30 and 31: Herbicides are used on more than 90
Page 32 and 33: Dalton, Timothy J., William Masters
Page 34 and 35: Labrada, R. and C. Parker. 2003. We
Page 36 and 37: Orr, A., B. Mwale, and D. Saiti. 20

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